Board-Senate Hearing Panel for Sexual Harassment/Anti-Discrimination
Under the McMaster University Anti-Discrimination PolicyDECISION – May 2013

Many previously undisclosed details are in this document, which also recaps a 21-day in-camera hearing before a university Tribunal, March 3-June 6, 2012.

The Tribunal accepted 2,694 documents into evidence and heard testimony from 65 witnesses as it examined claims and counter-claims generated by the bizarre feud inside the school.

One of its key findings? That complaints “do not establish that the individual respondent Mr. Paul Bates engaged in harassment.” The Tribunal said that “Mr. Bates was a lightning rod but he was not the cause of the poisoned academic/work environment.”

All the penalties – suspensions, orders for sensitivity training, removal from positions of authority – are in this Tribunal document.

The Tribunal concluded that long suspensions were needed to allow injured faculty to move ahead with their careers and to allow the school to heal by removing the people deemed to be most responsible for the poisoned work environment.

The President’s Advisory Committee on the DeGroote School of Business
Report to the President – December 15, 2010

The Committee was set up after reports of harassment, bullying, abusive & disrespectful behaviour, as well as evidence of overall dysfunction at the school. The committee’s role was to recommend how to bring about a productive work environment.

“If strong willed personalities are . . . involved,” this report says, “then a tone of discord can develop leading to a highly tense atmosphere or, at worst, a state of dysfunction within the Faculty. This describes the current situation in the DeGroote School of Business.”